It’s over. The caravanning experiment is no more. Good!

I’ve not entirely loved the caravan experience, just in case you hadn’t noticed. Sure, it’s not all bad news, but I must conclude that overall, the downsides outweighed the plus sides.

The biggest downside is having a ruddy huge caravan sitting on the driveway. It has been getting in the way. We’ve used it a total of four times this year (two of those times, it was sat in the same field in Buckinghamshire), and it just doesn’t balance out. It’s too much of a pain in the arse for the good times we’ve had in it.

Good. This caravan is no longer here.

I don’t much like towing it either. Sure, both of my tow vehicles (XM and then the RAV4) coped rather well with it, but it really does take the fun out of driving. Going away is meant to be a joyous experience. I felt the enjoyable journey was less enjoyable, because of worrying about the van and not being able to hoon. BORING. Also, crawling up Fish Hill in the Cotswolds in second gear was rather tedious.

The worst part was getting home though, where the only option was to reverse it down our narrow driveway. This was always horrible. I am so glad I’ll never have to do that again. It’s actually far easier to reverse a car trailer down our driveway, because you can see all of it, and double axles make a trailer less twitchy. I like a driving challenge, but sometimes, you just don’t want the trouble.

Anyway, it has gone. I’m not sure what our next strategy will be. We go camping so infrequently that it seems a bit silly to have any sort of vehicle on the driveway specifically for it. I suspect the S-MX will be rather too cosy with two of us trying to sleep in it, so we may have to return to tents. Or maybe spend the money saved by not hauling a caravan around on B&Bs instead. We’ll see.